WAAROVER MEN NIET SPREEKT 1: HOME SWEET HOME

’Home Sweet Home’ is a manifesto against the dictatorship of the bourgeois notion of the ideal home. ’I rented a house with a garden’ is still a current slogan, even if people buy apartments, villas and country-houses. People attempt to hide themselves in their homes and as a consequence a kind of social isolation arises that prevents the necessary community spirit. Part of the BRT (Belgian radio and television broadcast network) television series ’Waarover men niet spreekt’ (’’What is left unspoken’).

Content: 00’00" Leader. 00’07" Title (like a name plate on a house), a manifesto against the dictatorship of the bourgeois notion of the ideal home, a montage of terraces and facades. 00’35" Fragment of Holiday on Ice. 01’30" A couple in a car following a brass band in Lier. 02’15" Photo-montage of the Shah of Persia, Holiday on Ice, "the man in the street". 03’20" The cabaret artist Bob Scholte singing in a cafe J’ai loue une maisonnette avec un petit jardin (I have rented a little house with a small garden). 04’30" A couple in a traffic jam in Lier. 05’10" Anatomic model of the brain. 06’25" Apollo rocket taking off. Houston control centre. 07’20" Title "My home is my castle". Children drawing and modelling little houses. 09’15" An employee at an estate agent’s doing business over the phone. Removers loading furniture into a van, unloading it and taking it into an apartment block. 11’45" Title "Oost west, thuis best" (home sweet home). Aerial views of Antwerp with its residential areas, its overcrowded offices. Photographs of housewives. 13’25" Port installations. Family photographs. The Meir on a Sunday. Rows of identical homes in residential districts. 16’15" Estate agent’s window. Employees showing prospective buyers round houses and apartments. Montage of apartment blocks and apartments. 20’25" Houses being auctioned off in cafes at Merksem and Wilrijk. An architect drawing plans on his drawing-board. 23’35" Everyone’s home is his castle : the camera glides through Zurenborg district. 24’40" Roofs in Antwerp town centre. A clothes shop with a "sixties" interior. A large bedroom in a loft. 26’15" Speeded-up picture of a removal. Montage of advertisements and photographs of rockets. 26’50" The camera showing the rooms in a down-town apartment. 29’25" Bits of films. 29’55" Views of a convent (as a way of life). 31’35" A man playing darts. 31’45" The camera gliding through the bedrooms of a restored farmhouse at Zandhoven, showing the inhabitants and the lush surroundings. Photomontage of sick people. 35’47" Credits. 36’10" (Source: Jef Cornelis 1964 - 1990, Espace Art Contemporain : Maison de la culture et de la Communication de Saint-Etienne, 1991)